Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c17.s3.14

c17.s3.14

To the rival family of Eukratides belonged Heliokles and probably Antialkidas who ruled conjointly with Lysias. A common type of Antialkidas is the Pilei of the Dioscuri, which seems to connect him with Eukratides; his portrait according to Gardner resembles that of Heliokles. It is not improbable that he was an immediate successor of Heliokles.¹ A Besnagar Inscription makes him a contemporary of Kāsî (Kośî = Kautsī?) putra Bhāgabhadra of Vidiśā who ruled some time after Agnimitra probably in or about the latter half of the second century B.C. The capital of Antialkidas was probably at Takshaśilā or Taxila, the place from which his ambassador Heliodoros went to the kingdom of Bhāgabhadra. But his dominions seem also to have included Kāpiśi or Kāpiśa.² After his death the western Greek kingdom probably split up into three parts, *viz.*, Takshaśilā (ruled by the line represented by Archebios¹), Pushkalāvatī (governed by Diomedes, Epander,² Philoxenos, Artemidoros, and Peukolaos), and Kāpiśi with the Kābul region held successively by Amyntas and Hermaeus (Hermaios). With Hermaios was associated his queen, Kalliope. Kāpiśa was, according to Chinese evidence, probably occupied by the Sai-wang (Śāka lord) some time in the latter part of the second century B.C. But the barbarian chieftain, like the Kushān *Yavuga* of later times, may have acknowledged the nominal suzerainty of the Greek *Basileas*, as Teutonic chieftains in Europe were, during the fifth century A.D., sometimes content with the rank of 'patrician' and 'consul,' under the nominal authority of the titular Roman emperor.